Artist Statement

Within the natural world, there is a need to survive, endure, and find safety. There is constant work involved in being hypervigilant, always ready to fight for what little you have. As a sculptor, I use animal and human figures as an access point to our collective understanding of struggle through emotionalism, scale, color, and familiar gesture. We all hide, bare our teeth, lash out, and flee in attempts to control the world around us. This intense effort is apparent in every part of my making: from subject to process to exhibition. Like many others, I have built myself on the belief that there is not only value but a necessity to labor. Each piece reflects the unrelenting fight to survive in its various stages, using turmoil as a visual form of confrontation and change.

Though agnostic myself, my work refers to my religious upbringing and academic studies of religion, psychology, and anthropology. I exchanged a belief in any god for a belief in labor: physical, emotional, and otherwise. For me, this faith is parallel to that of a divine source, though with a more attainable outcome. Human beings need faith in something, anything really, to draw purpose from. My work explores how and in what situations those beliefs are expressed. As with my art, my subscriptions are also exhibited in my love of climbing, the backcountry, and the unknown. I am deeply influenced by my time growing up in the Pacific Northwest and in the mountains of Alaska.